Thanks for the info. I may buy one of those battery boxes, and try it next time.
The music I recorded wasn't very loud at all (acoustic instruments in large hall), so I'm not sure why I had the problems. And as I said, when I tested at home, recording muaic played on the stereo, the results were very good.
One other question--if one has a recording that was recorded at too high a level, with distortion as a result, can it be fixed at all afterwards with software processing? For instance, would normalizing it to 0 db help it?
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Originally Posted by framesaver
A battery box simply powers the mics. This allows them to be used on machines that don't provide 'plug-in power'. The more power you apply, the more volume they can withstand before overloading. Most battery boxes are 9V. Mics attached to one put out a faint signal that does not need any amplification to be recorded by a device, though it may need to be boosted using software afterwards. People often use a battery box and the line-in option to record loud sounds such as rock music - This is as there is very little chance of getting 'digital clipping' on a track recorded this way.
A preamp boosts the signal at the same time as applying the power to the mics. They usually have a gain control to adjust the signal level that is being fed from the mics to the recording device. You would need some form of amplification to record quiet sounds such as nature or unplugged music. This is what the ext mic setting does on the iRiver, though it only applies 2.5V of power, whereas an external one would provide 9V.
Battery boxes do not have level meters. Some preamps have a 'clipping alert' - A single LED that lights up when the gain is too high for the sound level in the room. Only the most expensive have any kind of metering, usually several LEDs acting as volume bars.
Unless you're made of money, a battery box with a bass roll-off setting (plenty of these from SP) and an ext mic setting between 0 and 5 should provide you with an adequate solution. Your current mics are probably fine. That clear things up?
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